This invention relates to telephone-based commerce, and in particular to a telephone-based system and method which facilitates voice-conducted commerce transactions over existing telephone networks.
Electronic-based commerce, also known as E-commerce, permits users to conduct business transactions and shopping with at least some electronic communications, either through computer text entry or through voice commands. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,341,264; 6,510,417; 6,581,035; 6,658,389; 6,807,574; and 6,636,590 describe systems which provide users with the capability of conducting voice commerce (V-commerce) by entering voice commands for conducting business transactions.
Other known systems provide users with electronic access to accounts, as described in U.S. Patent Application Publication Numbers US 2002/0116264 A1; US 2002/0119767; and US 2004/0147245 A1. Such known E-commerce and V-commerce systems have had limited applicability to provide an integrated and comprehensive system for facilitating consumer transactions.
Improvements in speech technology have led to the growth of the use of speech applications, particularly among large companies. Despite improvements in speech application standards and development tools, expectations to easily and affordably proliferate speech applications are as yet unfulfilled. Fortune 500 organizations have moved over the past year to new web based telephony platforms and speech enabled traditional Interactive Voice Response (IVR) applications in an effort to improve service. Automated speech applications that provide for a Return on Investment (ROI) through reduced personnel costs are emerging. Companies now have a choice of roll-your-own systems, hosted systems, or some combination from any number of known vendors in the marketplace.
Small and medium business (SMB) organizations have yet to significantly deploy speech applications. SMBs lack the resources to design a speech application and its interface, to record professional voice talents, and to monitor and tune a voice system. To address high upfront costs, vendors such as Angel, Apptera, Datria, Fluency, Harborlight and Metaphor Solutions offer pre-packaged generic applications that can be tailored. Secondly, free voiceXML starter platforms and online toolkits are available from Tellme, Be Vocal and Voxeo, and other free toolkits from “IBM CORPORATION” can be utilized at little or no cost. Thirdly, IBM has donated Reusable Dialogue Components to the public for a Java-based environment. These components perform functions and dynamically generate VoiceXML code when they run.
Numerous vendors are used by large companies that offer voice platforms which include standards, such as VoiceXML, and/or speech engines to implement speech applications.
Additionally, major vendors are active in this field whose strength in the market is as middleware providers, such as “MICROSOFT CORPORATION” and “IBM CORPORATION”. Some vendors are speech specialists which include support for standards including VoiceXML. Vendors such as Nuance, Loquendo, Telisma and upcoming competitors from countries such as China and others focus on the speech engines.
Vendors such as TuVox that come to market with strengths in hosted and managed solutions are used by large and smaller companies. In some cases, these are hybrid premise-service offerings built on VoiceXML and IP networks. Vendors offering this type of solution include carriers such as AT&T or MCI, contact center outsourcers such as Convergys or West Corporation, and voice response services such as Tellme Networks.
However, despite such developments in IVR, the reality of linking payment cards, such as credit cards, debit cards, and/or pre-paid cards to cell phones has not been substantially or fully realized in the United States. A number of banking and financial institutions are testing the idea and hope to roll out similar products in the future, such as operating with the “PAYPAL” payment system commercially available from “EBAY, INC.”, as well as Obopay, Textpayme, and Mobilelime. In addition, radio frequency identification (RFID) wireless projects that use the phone as a card, such as EZpass, are driven by banks and credit card companies.
U.S. trials are in place, such as one which allows existing customers of “JPMORGAN CHASE & COMPANY” to pay at Philips Arena in Atlanta via a telephone device with an embedded chip. Most cell phones do not include the Near-Field Communication (NFC) chip, but cell phone manufacturers are moving towards this capability and it is expected that half of all phones will have the NFC chip by 2010.
There are numerous deployed text based mobile payment applications outside of the United States, in addition to a number of mobile phone solutions with integrated swipe capability which have been available and appear to be moving towards additional non-swipe solutions.
Another area related to mobile speech is multi-modal applications which more closely tie the phone's speech and visual processing. Multi-modal capability has the potential for implementation, but not fully for the next few years because of network constraints which are better addressed in 3G mobile networks, to which the United States is now moving. Also, a majority of phones are not capable of supporting two simultaneous channels, with just one for speech and one for visuals.
However, the existing systems fail to provide a speech application that complements a core payment processing business and influences banks and other key partners to conduct such electronic business and commerce.
In addition, known E-commerce systems such as Internet and web-based commercial applications are typically visually based, and so are disadvantageous for people with limited or no sight. Besides such users who have limited or no sight, other potential users such as young people, sometimes referred to as “Gen-Yers”, routinely use telephones, and in particular cell phones as opposed to using personal computers (PC) and PC-based Internet browsers. Furthermore, potential users such as the relatively old or relatively poor may lack the ability, familiarity, comfort level, and financial resources to use traditional computer-based E-commerce, and cannot conduct E-commerce based on such visual as well as tactile operations of prior art computers, for example, using the mouse and browsers interacting with E-commerce websites on the Internet. Such Gen-Yers, older users, and relatively poor users may be more readily familiar with and comfortable with using telephones, and so such users would more readily use telephone-based systems to successfully conduct commerce through voice commands.
An integrated V-commerce system with automated payment methods would be advantageous to facilitate commercial activities by groups of people having a greater affinity to using telephones than using PC-based E-commerce facilities, such as people with limited or no sight, and young people including Gen-Yers, as well as the elderly and the poor.